El detective invisible

Sam Cooper, a low-level State Department dweeb, comes into possession of a small silver sphere. Sam learns that the sphere contains tiny vials of a blue liquid, a serum that, upon drinking it, renders that person temporarily invisible. As a result Sam is hunted by three dumb thugs, a Soviet diplomat, and his best friend who works for Naval Intelligence. All of them want the sphere. Unfortunately, for Sam he can't simply turn over the vials or destroy them. By using the serum his body now carries "residues" that can be used to duplicate the formula. Making him valuable to all parties dead or alive.

For a movie that's supposed to be a comedy, there are very few laughs. Often the film is just outright silly. There is a lot of running around, yelling, and chasing along with a few sex gags and nude scenes. This film might have worked better if they had played it as a straightforward thriller and avoided the gimmicky 3-D photography.

Movies dealing with invisibility, is totally intriguing. I've seen Disney's "Now You See Him, Now You Don't", H.G.Wells' "The Invisible Man". And I remember the TV movie, "The Invisible Woman". In this movie, Steve Guttenberg plays a government worker who stumbled upon a small silver canister given to him by an invisible man. Before dying, the man gives information about who to meet with the canister. With the Russians and other 3rd world countries vying for the canister, Sam(Guttenberg) is over his head. Supposed to be getting married to his fiancée, Amanda(Morgan Most). In order to get away from the bad guys, he is assisted by her friend, Cindy (Lisa Langlois) who ended up being more understanding than Amanda. When Sam invests the formula, he experienced the state of being unseen. He gets his kicks at an all-girls academy by raising havoc. The funniest thing I've ever seen is when he accidentally spills the soda on the table, and sneak into the girls' shower to get a towel. After being caught by Cindy, they would eventually team up. Sam and Cindy go out and try to find the man who knows about the formula. The good news is that Sam is being helped by people around him. The bad news is that Amanda, Sam's own fiancée is part of the situation that he was clueless about. Even though this movie is not kid friendly, it's highly entertaining. Try to make this an adult film, and it will be disappointing. Because you won't be able to to see the action. Since this is a 3-D comedy, it's highly entertaining in every way. It was not a let down. 3 out of 5 stars.

The 3-D featured in "The Man Who Wasn't There" stands for DUMB, DUMB, DUMB! This inept comedy features lousy 3-D effects that makes the 3-D effects in "Jaws 3", "Amityville 3", and "Friday the 13th Part 3" look better by comparison. Not to mention the movie is asinine to the extreme. This was one of many 1983 movies to feature the pop-off-the-screen effects. Steve Guttenberg and Jeffrey Tambor got trapped in this mess, but at least it didn't kill their careers. Tambor would go on to star on HBO's "The Larry Sanders Show" and Ron Howard's box office smash "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", while Guttenberg followed this flop with "Police Academy" and "Cocoon". What them in those projects instead of them here in "The Man Who Wasn't There". If you do, you'll regret it.

1/2* (out of four)

In these kinds of movies, it's the same old story: Ordinary guy finds invisibility formula, then ends up being chased by agents, who of course, want the substance to make money. Okay, maybe it's not always exactly the same, but most of these movies, if not all, are identical. Invisibility aside, there's not much of a plot. The movie begins and ends with a wedding, and in between, it's the hero and his girlfriend mostly hiding and running. The movie is entertaining, but not very suspenseful. Maybe that's because the bad guys aren't particularly bad. One of them points a gun for most of the movie, which is about as bad as any of these agents get.

**1/2 out of ****

Let me confess. I found this video used and bought it because Guttenberg looked so sexy in his underwear on the jacket. But inside was another story. Besides the fact that the movie was basically a parody of "invisible-man" genre special effects (highly visible strings and other such paraphernalia), the script wasted no chance -- in fact it went out of its way -- in insulting all non-WASP races and real-or-imagined homosexuals. Every insult aimed at a person in the script was either homophobic or racist or both. It starts to grate on your nerves, along with the shaky sound, candid- camera style photography and melodramatic story. However, the end is somewhat of a surprise. But by the time you get there, you hardly care less. Too bad, it could been a reasonably good movie.